The WUWT Hot Sheet for Sept 26th, 2013

There is much in the news about how IPCC will handle the growing discrepancy between models and observations – long an issue at skeptic blogs. According to BBC News, a Dutch participant says that “governments are demanding a clear explanation” of the discrepancy. On the other hand, Der Spiegel reports:

German ministries insist that it is important not to detract from the effectiveness of climate change warnings by discussing the past 15 years’ lack of global warming. Doing so, they say, would result in a loss of the support necessary for pursuing rigorous climate policies.

According to Der Spiegal (h/t Judy Curry), Joachim Marotzke, has promised that the IPCC will “address this subject head-on”. Troublingly, Marotzke felt it necessary to add that “climate researchers have an obligation not to environmental policy but to the truth”.

Unfortunately, as Judy Curry recently observed, it is now two minutes to midnight in the IPCC timetable. It is now far too late to attempt to craft an assessment of a complicated issue.

JC message to IPCC: Once you sort out the uncertainty in climate sensitivity estimates and fix your climate models, let us know. Then please do the hard work of understanding regional vulnerability to climate variability and change before you tell us what constitutes ’dangerous’ climate change. And let us know if you come up with any solutions to this ‘problem’ that aren’t worse than the potential problem itself.

The leaked version of the AR5 SPM includes this description of sea level rise:

It is very likely that the mean rate of global averaged sea level rise was 1.7 [1.5 to 1.9] mm yr–1 between 1901 and 2010 and 3.2 [2.8 to 3.6] mm yr–1 between 1993 and 2010. Tide-gauge and satellite altimeter data are consistent regarding the higher rate of the latter period. It is likely that similarly high rates occurred between 1920 and 1950.

Notice that they dropped any statement wondering whether the recent rate of rise was an increase in the longer-term trend or the result of short-term variability or other non- climate-change-related factors—even though the difference between these cases has implications for our understanding of sea level rise and how it may evolve into the future.

We repeat—recent scientific findings argue that rate of sea level rise since 1993 is little different than the long-term (20th century) rate of sea level rise once natural variability and non-climatic influences are accounted for.

Donna LaFramboise’s op-ed in the WSJ:Warming Up for Another Climate-Change Report

My own examination of the 2007 IPCC report found that two-thirds of its 44 chapters included at least one individual with ties to the WWF. Some were former or current employees, others were members of a WWF advisory panel whose purpose is to heighten the public’s sense of urgency around climate change.

In a sense, the IPCC conducts the equivalent of a trial. The organization is supposed to be policy-neutral: Its job is to decide whether or not human-generated carbon-dioxide emissions are dangerous to the climate. Rajendra Pachauri is the chief judge.

Mr. Pachauri writes forewords for Greenpeace publications and recently accepted an International Advertising Association “green crusader” award. He is an aggressive advocate for emissions reduction and carbon taxes.

Via the Hockey Schtick: IPCC says only way to lower temperatures is NEGATIVE CO2 emissions

According to New Scientist, the forthcoming IPCC report will say, “CO2-induced warming is projected to remain approximately constant for many centuries following a complete cessation of emission. A large fraction of climate change is thus irreversible on a human timescale, except if net anthropogenic CO2 emissions were strongly negative over a sustained period.”

Over the last day or so, Julia Slingo has sent a polite, but somewhat evasive response to Nic Lewis regarding his critique of the UKCP09 model. It can be seen here.

Nic Lewis’s reaction is here. I don’t think he is very impressed. The key exchange relates to the following paragraph in Slingo’s paper:

Having said that, it is true that the relationship between historical aerosol forcing and equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) depicted in your Figure B1 is based only on the PPE. But we disagree with your assertion that the results from HadCM3 are fundamentally biased. It is certainly the case that versions of HadCM3 with low climate sensitivity and strongly negative aerosol forcing are incompatible with the broad range of observational constraints. But the key point is that the relationship between aerosol forcing and ECS is an emergent property of the detailed physical processes sampled in the PPE simulations.

A paper published today in Global Environmental Change finds that “a central organising idea for climate change sceptics” is that climate change is governed by natural cycles, such as ocean oscillations and solar activity, and that “‘sceptics can have pro-environmental values similar to climate change believers.“

According to the authors, “In contrast to other studies that postulate scepticism and denial as individuals’ fear management strategies in the face of climate change threat, we found that the natural cycles view is founded on a reassuring deeper conviction about how nature works, and is linked to other pro-environmental values not commonly found in sceptical groups. It is a paradox of natural cycles thinking that it rejects the anthropocentrism that is at the heart of science-based environmentalism. By contrast, it places humans as deeply integrated with nature, rather than operating outside it and attempting with uncertain science to control something that is ultimately uncontrollable.”

Quite true, most skeptics I know are pro-enviroment for things that actually matter, such as water quality, toxic pollutants, sulfur dioxide, nitrous oxide, atmospheric particulates, etc., but opposed to wasting the majority of environmental efforts on trying to control the weather with the harmless, essential, & trace gas CO2.

Al Gore’s “consensus” is about to be holed below the water-line – and those still aboard the SS Global Warming are adjusting their positions. Some, such as scientist Judith Curry of Georgia Tech, have abandoned ship. She describes the IPCC’s stance as “incomprehensible”.

Others, such as the EU’s Climate Commissioner, Connie Hedegaard, steam on oblivious. Interviewed last week by the Telegraph’s Bruno Waterfield, she said: “Let’s say that science, some decades from now, said: ‘We were wrong, it was not about climate’, would it not in any case have been good to do many of the things you have to do in order to combat climate change?” If she means needlessly driving up energy prices, carpeting the countryside with wind turbines and terrifying children about a problem that turns out to have been imaginary, then most of us would probably answer “No”.

49 thoughts on “The WUWT Hot Sheet for Sept 26th, 2013”

Bart Verheggen is an atmospheric scientist and blogger who supports the mainstream view of global warming. He said that sceptics have discouraged an open scientific debate.

“When scientists start to notice that their science is being distorted in public by these people who say they are the champions of the scientific method, that could make mainstream researchers more defensive.

“Scientists probably think twice now about writing things down. They probably think twice about how this could be twisted by contrarians.”

It is about time that these so-called scientists now think twice before writing things down. They need to make sure what they write they can back up by solid science and fact, not supposition and wishful thinking. Their ‘science’ cannot be distorted if it is true.

Originally posted on “Study: The late cretaceous period was likely ice free”. Probably has just as much relevance here as the IPCC report coming out tomorrow.

And my point is . . . .

(Sigh) Let’s remind ourselves . . . .

Fact: Excluding CO2, 99.96% of ‘the sky’ is made up of all the other atmospheric gases. This leaves CO2 at just 0.040% (400 parts per million). For those decision makers who have still not grasped how miniscule this amount is and prefer it explained in simple terms, think of 1 x Imperial Gallon of CO2 to every 3,200 gallons of air (0.040% of 3,200 = about 1).

Fact: There are two types of CO2 – ‘naturally occuring’ and ‘man-made’. 96.775% of CO2 is naturally occurring, thus leaving man-made CO2 @ 3.225%. For those decision makers who still have not grasped how miniscule this amount is and prefer it explained in simple terms, there are 8 pints in 1 x Imperial Gallon. Of the gallon of CO2, 7.75 pints of it is completely natural and 0.25 pints is man-made (96.775% of 8 pints = 7.75 pints).

And my point is . . . . how can such a minuscule amount of man-made gas be responsible for a 1 degree C temperature increase in the last century – and that our decision makers feel that by curbing just the ‘burning of fossil fuels’ part of this minuscule amount of man-made gas (ignoring all the other ways we manufacture the stuff) that they will save the world from doom – however much it costs.

If GW is mainly a manifestation of UHI effect as you seem to claim coupled with incorrectly sited weather stations. Then why has the UHI effect ceased to operate for the last 16 years?

If it is so embarassing for the warmist scientists that there has ben this flatlining then since you claim that adjustments caused some of the earlier warming why have they now ceased to fiddle the figures in a suitable manner?

“Troublingly, Marotzke felt it necessary to add that “climate researchers have an obligation not to environmental policy but to the truth”.”

If you look for a warmist apparatchik in Germany and Schellnhuber isn’t available, Marotzke is your man. He helped whip public opinion in Germany into shape in the run up to COP15 in Copenhagen, for instance, and there have been photo ops of him standing in the baltic sea with water up to his knees to help convince the Germans that it’s really really bad.

I would say that his utterance by Marotzke is a simple way of saying “Send money” to Brussels.

…”before you tell us what constitutes ’dangerous’ climate change. ”
Does the working group 1 make that call? I thought they were always careful to avoid it.

“In a sense, the IPCC conducts the equivalent of a trial. The organization is supposed to be policy-neutral: Its job is to decide whether or not human-generated carbon-dioxide emissions are dangerous to the climate. Rajendra Pachauri is the chief judge.”
I thought that ‘ dangerous’ was always a presumption. As for what constitutes ‘dangerous levels’ , i thought that was ruled out by Bolin in early 90s as not a scientific question. And so it has been avoided ever since – something about which many were grumpy.

Finally, do we really understand what is happening in Stockholm? Perhap someone needs to explain that that the IPCC is no monolith, that the expert authors job is pretty much over, that this is now a negotiation for consensus among country delegates who there and otherwise could hardly be identified as this monster we lampoon as the IPCC.

I just went to weather.com and the first thing I see is “What’s brewing in the tropics?” and below that “4 Hurricanes at once?”. And I’m going ‘OMG did I miss something?” So I jump over to the National Hurricane Center website and see there is absolutely nothing going on. It turns out the article is referring to something that happened in 1998. Seriously?

If GW is mainly a manifestation of UHI effect as you seem to claim coupled with incorrectly sited weather stations. Then why has the UHI effect ceased to operate for the last 16 years?

If it is so embarassing for the warmist scientists that there has ben this flatlining then since you claim that adjustments caused some of the earlier warming why have they now ceased to fiddle the figures in a suitable manner?

Nobody claims UHI has “ceased to operate for the last 16 years”. Global temperature varies: it always has and it always will. The warming prior to “the last 16 years” was mostly natural and the “pause” of “the last 16 years” is too.

I am often amazed at the way true believers in AGW deny climate change which has always happened and will always happen. Their beliefs are most odd.

“BBC stops short of calling the Principi@ zealots out for being the irrational nutballs that they are, but I think readers can figure it out for themselves once the visit the Principi@ website.”

Jean-Pascal van Ypersele (Brussels, 1957) has a Ph. D. in Physics from the Université catholique de Louvain (UCL, 1986 with highest honours), based on work done at the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR, Boulder, Colorado) on the effect of global warming on Antarctic sea ice.

He has specialized in climate change modelling and the study of the impact of human activities on climate. He is also interested by the impacts of climate change on human activities and ecosystems. As professor at UCL, he teaches, e.g., climatology, climate modelling, astronomy, geophysics, mathematical geography and environmental sciences, and directs the interdisciplinary Master programme in environmental sciences and management.

As a fully paid-up member of the “science is settled” brigade, Ypersele is fully invested in keeping the whole “man-made-CO2-is-killing-the-Earth” story, and there is nothing he likes better than dismissing nay sayers as idiots (and I’m being kind). This stance makes him the darling of both the BBC and the Guardian and explains from where an enormous number of their “expert” statements originate. There is a 50-page PDF online detailing the thoughts of Chairman Ypersele on AGW but I won’t link it here because it is a waste of time as it just repeats (in enormous type) everything you’ve heard (ad nauseum) from the Guardian and the BBC for the last 20 years. Ypersele is going to defend to the death his reputation which rests on 100% AGW orthodxy as pumulgated by the BBC/Independent/Guardian/Royal Society, etc. and everyone who agrees with him, like the IPCC.

Ypersele has a completely closed mind on AGW, and why any one would believe anything he says about the climate is beyond me.

Tomorrow is the big day. Any chance that the IPCC will cave to the demands that the pause be treated with respect, realize that they need to change more than just the SPM (Summary for Policy Wonks), and delay releasing the whole AR5 for the six months or so it would take fix all the chapters that the SPM supposedly summarizes?

Tomorrow is the big day. Any chance that the IPCC will cave to the demands that the pause be treated with respect, realize that they need to change more than just the SPM (Summary for Policy Wonks), and delay releasing the whole AR5 for the six months or so it would take fix all the chapters that the SPM supposedly summarizes?

No, that would be contrary to precedent.

As Sir John Houghton announced in a previous similar circumstance when he was Chairman of the IPCC

All of the CO2 kills and the earth will burn soon types of the IPCC should have to do all their research from now on out in the open in say Midland Texas, so’s they would at last notice the sun up there.

‘According to Der Spiegal (h/t Judy Curry), Joachim Marotzke, has promised that the IPCC will “address this subject head-on”. Troublingly, Marotzke felt it necessary to add that “climate researchers have an obligation not to environmental policy but to the truth”.’

I think what the climate researchers feel (but won’t say) is that their true obligation is to money and power.

The IPCC does not conduct the equivalent of a trial, other than a kangaroo court. This week, they’re deciding what the outcome should be in their Summary for Policy Makers. Later they adjust the evidence and release their “scientific” report with the details which support the Summary which was created by political processes.

Also, for the headline:
The GWPF: Most Climate Sceptics Are Also Environmentalists
The proper word there is “Conservationists”.

JC message to IPCC: Once you sort out the uncertainty in climate sensitivity estimates and fix your climate models, let us know. Then please do the hard work of understanding regional vulnerability to climate variability and change before you tell us what constitutes ’dangerous’ climate change. And let us know if you come up with any solutions to this ‘problem’ that aren’t worse than the potential problem itself.

– – – – – – – – –

Also, we have a begged question. Can science fix the IPCC?

Unlikely. The repair comes from elsewhere.

John

PS – late to the comment party, been wildly celebrating for the past 18 hours the unbelievable comeback by OTUSA to take AC34.

“According to New Scientist, the forthcoming IPCC report will say, “CO2-induced warming is projected to remain approximately constant for many centuries following a complete cessation of emission. A large fraction of climate change is thus irreversible on a human timescale, except if net anthropogenic CO2 emissions were strongly negative over a sustained period.”

If that is true, it proves that anthropogenic emissions are a minor contribution to the accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere. At present, natural sinks are sucking up at least 95% of all emmisions (both natural and anthropogenic) and anthropogenic emmisions contribute only about 5% of total emissions.

We may have already reached our maximum global temperature, If atmospheric CO2 concentration follows temperature, we should expect a maximum CO2 within the next thirty years.

Their models do not agree with reality. They fail with respect to the anthropogenic contribution to CO2 accumulation as well as to warming sensitivity to CO2.

“German ministries insist that it is important not to detract from the effectiveness of climate change warnings by discussing the past 15 years’ lack of global warming. Doing so, they say, would result in a loss of the support necessary for pursuing rigorous climate policies.”

Which Ministries and which people, I want names so we can address them in person.

In terms of surrendering to Ideologies Germany has an historic obligation not to make the same mistake again.

The fact that warming has stalled over the past 15 years should be celebrated, especially now the Energiewende is a complete faillure.

I’m worried by the German response but we should give the German people a fair chance.

They wil pay the price and all that was served until now is the lies from the political establishment and the endless stream of alarmist propaganda in the media.

UHI is not global warming. It is an artifact of localized human activity. The fact that temperature measurements are taken in inappropriate locations such as airports indicates a serious problem with the methodology. It does not mean the global warming is as real as is claimed.

AGW refers to global warming — but there is no testable, measurable scientific evidence proving that human activity contributes anything at all to global warming.

[Disclaimer: it is possible that human activity does contribute something to global warming, even though there is not a shred of measurable evidence to support that conjecture. But if it is true, then the warming caused is so minuscule that it can be completely disregarded for all policy decisions. It is just too small to matter.]

But you continue with your post at September 26, 2013 at 9:12 am. I quote it here in full

r coutney you say:

“You either misunderstand or you misrepresent when you assert that some people “seem to claim” GW “is mainly a manifestation” of these effects.”

recently roy spencer has claimed 50% of warming is due to uhi.
Spencer shows compelling evidence of UHI in CRUTem3 data
Posted on March 30, 2012 by Anthony Watts
I believe 0.2 to 0.3C is attributed to adjustments (another 20%)

In my books that makes 70% due to 2 effects. Then of course you have inaccuracy of measurement….

Both these effects have now ceased as of 1998. So have these stopped or is there a negative effect that has countered their warming?

What is this effect ?

OK, so you have conflated the opinions of two different people to obtain an assertion.
So what? If those people have said what you claim that indicates nothing.

Firstly, the so-called “measurements” are nothing of the sort. They are estimates which are changed in most months. For example of how they change then see this

However, global temperature certainly did rise over the last century. It has been rising from the Little Ice Age (LIA) for ~3 centuries. The rise has not been constant. The recovery from the LIA seems to consist of alternate 30-year periods of global warming and no warming (or slight cooling).

Do I know what caused the cool periods between those warm periods?
No, nobody knows.

Do I know if why the recovery from the LIA has alternative ~30 year periods of stall and warming?
No, nobody knows.

Do I know if the end of the existing stall (known as the “pause”) will be followed by warming to temperatures similar to the Medieval warm period or cooling to temperatures similar to the LIA?
No, nobody knows.

But some people pretend to know answers to these questions, and they are believed some gullible fools. Meanwhile, people who have not been duped by the now falsified AGW-scare continue to seek answers to these questions.

Ypersele has a completely closed mind on AGW, and why any one would believe anything he says about the climate is beyond me.

Completely agree with that. I have heard a speech of him for students at the University of Anywerp. Avoiding any answer to pertinent questions like about the current “hiatus” in upward temperature trend. And acting in the background to excert pressure so that a meeting of skeptics at the Free University of Brussels with Claes Johnson and Fred Singer was cancelled and had to move to a private place. Shame on him…

Right but irrelevant argument. No matter how small the amounts are, it is about its effect. 0.0001% of HCN in the atmosphere is enough to kill you…
Not that I think that even a doubling of CO2 is a problem (to the contrary, possible more beneficial than problematic). But (relative) concentrations can’t be used as argument.

There are two types of CO2 – ‘naturally occuring’ and ‘man-made’. 96.775% of CO2 is naturally occurring, thus leaving man-made CO2 @ 3.225%

Again irrelevant and wrong this time: the emissions are 3% of the total emissions, but additional, the natural emissions are more than compensated by the sinks which are at about 98.5%. Thus more sink than source. Thus most of the natural emissions are simply cycling in and out and the human contribution is largely responsible for the 30% increase in CO2 in the atmosphere.

And my point is . . . . how can such a minuscule amount of man-made gas be responsible for a 1 degree C temperature increase in the last century

Good question and probably only for a small part. But still not zero. And IF there is a substantial part of the warming caused by CO2, then humans are near fully responsible for it…

This thread is in danger of being side-tracked onto debate of the carbon cycle. I write to make one point in hope of diverting the discussion back to its mainline.

At September 26, 2013 at 12:10 pm you write

fhhaynie says:
September 26, 2013 at 7:42 am

If atmospheric CO2 concentration follows temperature, we should expect a maximum CO2 within the next thirty years.

It doesn’t look good for your theory: despite a flat trend, the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere goes up at a near constant ratio with human emissions…

If you were right that “the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere goes up at a near constant ratio with human emissions” (the meaning of “near constant ratio” is debatable) then it would not say anything about the statement of fhhaynie.

2) F. Englebeen: “IF there is a substantial part of the warming caused by CO2, then humans are near fully responsible for it… .”

You have provided no evidence for this conjecture. And you cannot. There isn’t any.
Further, native sources and sinks for CO2 have so much greater a magnitude than human CO2’s that even a slight imbalance in net native CO2 OVERWHELMS any human CO2 component.

Believe it or not, it is possible this is an honest mistake. OpenDNS marks most sites a phish site automatically. There have been cases in the past where other sites on a shared server cause multiple sites to be marked as phish sites.

Yup. (good point) The brains of scientists doing hard science, i.e., doing REAL science using observations to verify or falsify genuine hypotheses, have excellent wiring. Those who are huffing and puffing mere speculation have only straw.

Professor Corinne Le Quere, director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of East Anglia and one of the authors of the IPCC report, said: “The policy makers see the information from quite a different angle as they have to make a relationship with policy.

“They go through it line by line, paragraph by paragraph and suggest changes which the scientists then respond to.”

You are looking at the derivative of the increase, which effectively removes the trends. If you look at the trends, then the increase in the atmosphere perfectly matches the human emissions and not the temperature increase:
Or in ratio:

And indeed, the variability in sink rate is mostly from the variability in temperature, but that is not the cause of the trend.

You have provided no evidence for this conjecture. And you cannot. There isn’t any.
Further, native sources and sinks for CO2 have so much greater a magnitude than human CO2′s that even a slight imbalance in net native CO2 OVERWHELMS any human CO2 component.

I said IF (and only IF) there is a substantial effect of CO2 on temperature, then we are responsible for it, as humans are responsible for the increase of CO2…

While the natural fluxes are huge, the net natural variability after a year (or even over the seasons) is surprisingly small: about 4-5 ppmv/°C, that is all. Humans currently contribute 8-9 GtC/yr. That is about twice the natural variability:

You say:I am getting fed up with misrepresentations of the IPCC on WUWT threads. Yours is merely the latest.

But what followed felt like shouting me down rather than responding to what were quite specific point. My concern was that the original attack were not hitting the target. I am also concerned, and more so after your response, with the shrill rising among otherwise sober commentator such as yourself.

Here are two of my definitions which may assist the non AGW in their battle with the nonsense.
Delusional and denial-the modern coping method – you don’t have to cope with reality.
Propaganda-promoting an idea or concept while ignoring the facts of an opposing point of view.

Climatedepot.com would look normal. But OpenDNS is still reporting it as a phishing site, which could be picked up by URL Filtering engines. I did submit a report that its appearances is probably a hack and attempt DOS for political reasons.

Right but irrelevant argument. No matter how small the amounts are, it is about its effect. 0.0001% of HCN in the atmosphere is enough to kill you…
Not that I think that even a doubling of CO2 is a problem (to the contrary, possible more beneficial than problematic). But (relative) concentrations can’t be used as argument.

Ferdinand,

Nicely summarized. As you pointed out with the HCN example, a tiny amount of a substance can have a big effect. Small amounts of erythropoietin in our blood stream maintain our health.